We are born sentient beings. While some senses like eyesight improve over the first few months, others such as smell begin fully developed. General states of well being, as well as sensorial sensations dominate the first year or so of life. Our internal sensations of comfort and discomfort and our sensorial experiences of pain and pleasure guide and direct our responses, reactions, movements and activities.

Our early lives are very similar to other mobile organisms with complex nervous systems and brains (such as mammals). We are processing information, making choices and having feelings based on our perceptual sensorial world. We adapt and thrive in our environment by learning from our experiences in mostly a trial and error methodology.

The bulk of our time is spent in the actual and only over time do our perceptual images of our environment allow us to proactively plan and allow us to live in the possible. The journey to becoming a self-conscious autonomous person is a long, slow process. Growth in our ability to turn images into tools of imagination which we use to secure memories and project a future are vital to the emergence of self-consciousness and sense of personal history. Slowly we go from an actor responding to events, feelings and situations into a self-aware author of our own personal story.

The acquisition of language quickly turns the story into an ongoing internal narrative. We begin to tell our story to ourselves as well as others, and begin to see and hear that our story is often different from others with whom we speak. Developmental psychologists generally agree that most children demonstrate the ability to see and refer to themselves as a separate individual at around eighteen months. Yet, many research psychologists state that a firm and consistent sense of self may not fully form until the age of four.

While the body is a thing, the mind is a process. Sentient experience is always a combination of body and mind, whether that be in humans, animals or birds. Yet, the majority of sentient life is not self-conscious with an internal narrative or worded thought. As we described above, humans too, are not born self-conscious but only become so through language, a growing ability of imagination to project a future and remember a past, and an emerging ability to be aware of their own feelings and emotions.

Since the process of the emergence of self-consciousness from mere sentience occurs so smoothly and quickly in modern humans its importance is often minimized or completely overlooked. Add to this the fact that once we attain self-consciousness it dominates our experience and in fact becomes the very definition of our identify, it is easy to see why we ignore and forget that we were born sentient and not self-conscious.

It would appear that self-consciousness is itself a stage of development dependent on the interplay of the sensorial body, and autonomic and central nervous systems. Self-conscious awareness does indeed seem to be secreted by the body as an advanced and sophisticated means of improving our ability to both survive and thrive. With this in mind, it is not difficult to imagine humans existing without being self-conscious and easy for us to see this reality reflected in all sentient life and not just in apes and other highly sentient life forms.

So while a child only takes a couple of years of their life to become self-conscious the transformation of sentience becoming self-consciousness is even more pronounced and obvious on an evolutionary level. Currently life scientist estimate that multicellular organisms made their appearance around 700 million year ago. Around the same time they developed non-centralized nervous systems allowing their body of cells to communicate with each other. Nervous systems make their appearance in organic life approximately 500 million years ago along with a centralized primitive brain. The brain went through a number of stages and at around 320 million years ago the cerebral cortex seems to have emerged. While the exact date of the emergence of sentience is still not known it would seem logical to deduce that organisms with a cerebral cortex would be sentient.

Yet, the neocortex which seems to be the strongest candidate to herald the birth of self-consciousness as opposed to just sentience is placed as emerging only about 200,000 years ago. Therefore, you can see the incredible expanse between the emergence of sentience and the eventual emergence of self-consciousness.

While we have already discussed the important role language plays in self-consciousness we still do not know exactly when humans acquired language. We are fairly certain that language existed 70,000 years ago, but we do not know if came into existence at the same time as the neocortex or for how long the neocortex predates the birth of language.

Yet, even if later research cases significant changes in the above timeline, one thing seems rather certain and that is nervous systems producing sentience preceded self-conscious by hundreds of millions of years. We know that sentient beings used their perceptual abilities to not only survive but to flourish. Internal and external mechanisms such as comfort/discomfort and pleasure/pain guided organic life in its successful journey towards surviving and thriving.

Through natural selection organic life became more adept and adaptable and its developing nervous systems and brains increased its survival skills and mobility allowing territorial expansion and finding more suitable living conditions. As pointed out earlier in this article, the shift from sentience to self-consciousness in many ways was a shift from living and responding to the actual to being able to live in the possible and fictitious.

So, for hundreds of millions of years our evolutionary path was grounded in our ability to survive and thrive in real and in-the-moment events. While very advanced sentient beings can anticipate and plan based on a history of past events, as evidenced by the behavior of both predators and prey, only self-conscious beings can truly invent and create.

While being able to think, plan and act in the possible increases our abilities to thrive and survive, it also untethers us from the real and actual. Natural selection is a process that ensures that what is life affirming survives and succeeds and that which is not adaptive and generative dies out. Mechanisms such as pain and pleasure could impel us towards the life affirming and away from the life threatening. Through millions of years these built in attributes of natural selection fostered our developing into increasingly sophisticated and complex organisms with growing survival talents and skills.

To date, self-consciousness is the most advanced skill and talent generated by natural selection with unprecedented potential to have us thrive and be life affirming for not only ourselves but almost all of organic life. Yet, while living in the possible provides perspectives and knowledge increasing our ability to advance the cause of natural selection it also allows us to ignore and abandon the very laws that have guided the proliferation of organic life over literally billions of years.

In the previous article entitled Killing the Host we explored some of the potential harms and catastrophes that our self-consciousness could inflict on our fragile and lush planet. I would suggest you read that article now, and use it to help you better ponder the incredible opportunity and danger that natural selection has released through the emergence of self-conscious life.

It would seem prudent and wise for self-conscious beings to ponder well the road that natural selection has placed us upon and how it has assisted us, and organic life in general, in both surviving and thriving.Our current tendency to want to transform and transcend natural selection and to demean or reject all of our past is quite risky and extremely arrogant. While the debate between nature and nurture is vital to our understanding of who we are and where we are going, it seems foolish for us to denounce all our old ways of life and being in the world as arbitrary, archaic or as obstacles to our freedom and development.

Impulsive and reactionary behavior done from a level of self-consciousness does not have a great track record of being life affirming and furthering the cause of natural selection. Such tendencies of human nature have been grossly exploited to foster and justify war, prejudice and hatred. It is likely that further growth and development in the area of being life affirming and improving the quality of all organic life will be more an extension of the processes that have dominated the last few billion years than a rejection or dramatic transformation of its methods, mechanisms and strategies.

I, on numerous occasion throughout the years, have included in my posts the observation that the Industrial Capitalists have taken liberally from Big Tobacco’s play book of how to defeat scientific and populist concerns about their behavior and policies. When science and citizens began complaining about the unhealthy effects of tobacco and smoking, Big Tobacco shifted the debate from health to whether or not cigarettes “caused”cancer.

This debate, as you well know, went on for decades as proving something causes cancer is all but impossible. So instead of having to admit the obvious and highly documented negative health impacts of tobacco including the incredible number of toxins and poisons in the cigarettes, they were able to fend off such realities with a conceptual debate on causes of cancer or there even being a possible way to ascertain absolute cause of any multivariable health issue.

The science of the early ecological and environmental science movement is the late 60’s and 70’s had no trouble showing and documenting the unhealthy aspects of dumping tons of toxins and poisons into our land, water and air. And like big tobacco, the industrialized corporate community could tie up litigations in courts for years. Yet, like big tobacco they reveled at the opportunity to switch the debate from easily documentable health implications into a theoretical debate as to whether the poisonous assault on our environment is/was causing global warming.

During the great cancer debate smoking enthusiasts (nicotine addicts) were able to cite personal or anecdotal testimonials of people who had smoked two or three packs a day for decades and never got cancer. Likewise the capitalist industrialist (greed and wealth addict) is able to cite numerous examples of how their practices have in some way improved the environment and quality of life while finding many isolated and cherry picked studies which draw into the question the whole reality of the cause of global warming or its very existence.

While the term ecology was coined in the late 1860’s it took almost a full century before ecological science had popularized concerns that the very survival of much of the life of the planet was being threatened by human generated pollution and industry. In the mid 1960’s Buckminster Fuller began to popularize the idea that the earth was in essence a self-contained spaceship hurdling through the universe. He maintained that while the earth had evolved over billons of years to become a lush and flourishing home to an amazing array of organic life it was also a vulnerable and fragile enclosed biosphere that could be destroyed by the careless actions of humanity.

The more we learn about the planet and all of its organic life the more we see how intertwined and interlaced it all is. While it is true that the fight for survival gets played out in so many arenas of organic life, it is equally obvious that there is an even stronger dynamic of things working and functioning together. Life on planet earth does not just survive, but thrives and flourishes. In general, life uses the dead and dying life as fuel as a means of getting rid of waste and having the greater organism (earth) grow, thrive and flourish. The more we learn, viewing the earth’s biosphere as a living organism is more literal than figurative.

When one acknowledges that the earth is one huge spaceship one can easily see how foolish, dangerous and destructive pollution and war are to the long term survival of much of organic life, including humans. The Starship Enterprise, the famous spaceship from the TV series Star Trek was supposed to be half mile long and home to a couple of thousand people. Imagine how quickly it would have become a mass grave if it would have been home to endless wars amongst its crew members or would have been generating poisons and toxins inside the spaceship and becoming part of its circulated air and water supply.

While space ship earth is far larger it is still silly to think we and most of organic life can continue to survive and flourish when under constant assault through the propagation of poisons and toxins into our living environment. The earth took some 3 billion or so years to become stable and suitable enough to allow organic life to survive. All of organic life has a relatively narrow band of temperature, chemical composition, etc. in which they can survive. While it is true that the adaptable survive, it is also true that adaptation takes time and acceptable changes move at a snails pace in which hundreds of our generations aren’t even a recognizable blip on the screen.

The above discussion now has advanced to the point where we can talk about its title, Killing the Host. The earth is the host of all of life, and as a planet it is itself a living biosphere teeming with life. The earth as biosphere is alive and is filled with life in the very same manor that each human being is alive and their body and viscera is teeming with life.

Our activities are killing the host, that being earth, in much the same way that microbes, bacteria, germs, etc. canthreaten, make ill and even kill the body. While the fight for survival is usually dominated by a need to kill or eat the dead, dying or disabled to acquire fuel the killing the host method is quite rare and inefficient. In general organic life does not eat or kill something into extinction for a predator is dependent on the survival and flourishing of its prey for its continued survival and flourishing.

The vast majority of organisms that kill the host do so only during a relatively short adjustment period (especially considering the organic life time line which spans hundreds of millions or even billions of years). Once mutual adaptation occurs, if not becoming a mutually beneficial “teem/team” member, the once lethal organism either adapts to being a parasite or becomes an agent causing temporary dis-ease.

Shortly after developing microscopes strong enough to see bacteria we recognized the role they can play in deadly inflections, diseases and plagues. Soon the general populace began to view all germs (bacterium) as predatory and lethal, beginning a decades long, and in many cases still existing, war against the germ.

Recent dissemination to the public of the essential and beneficial role bacteria play in digestion as well as many other functions of our organs and central nervous system has still not removed the evil status of germs. Even when acknowledging their necessary role in both our surviving and flourishing we still feel it necessary to talk of good and bad bacterial cultures such as in the talk on probiotics.

When a microorganism is in its lethal stage, for its own survival, it must find a new host to inhabit before its old host expires. One of the more common ways in which lethal organisms jump from one host to another is when it becomes “air born” through sneezing or coughing.

When one frames the current status of mankind as a lethal germ whose activities are endangering and killing the host (various biomes and the earth’s biosphere in total) we can equate our desire to seek survival through space travel and “colonizing” other planets as our truly “exploring” ways to find another host to infect and kill. We are totally capable of adapting and becoming as life affirming and promoting as any other organic organism on planet earth, but our current course is one of killing the host.

Please look for and read my next post entitled “Does the Body Secrete Self-Consciousness?” which poses how we got where we are at, and what are some potential alternative courses of action. We can in deed become one of the most beneficial organisms in natures progression in having organic life continue to thrive and flourish in an ever increasing efficient and life affirming manner.

The change process is a crucial element to almost everything we learn or improve upon. In two posts I wrote over seven years ago I observed that the change process takes place on three levels.

The first level is that of a behavior or habit that you want to change. The second dimension involves the psychological and emotional elements which support and maintain the habit you want to change. The third dimension is the biochemical/neurological wiring that the habit creates in your body and brain.

While you can acquire improvement by just focusing on learning a new habit, real change occurs (and mastery of a new habit usually only results) when all three realms are honored and respected. Pease read the following links to the old posts for examples and a deeper explanation of the roles that habit/behavior, emotion/psychology, and biochemistry/neurology play in the change process.

So today I’d like to talk about the change process in slightly different terms. A comprehensive and efficient way for you to effectively make changes in your life is by reframing, replacing and rewiring.

Reframing means that one is encouraged to see things from an alternate perspective. The process of reframing allows one to stop being locked or rigid in the way one feels or thinks about their habit or bias. It opens them up emotionally and psychologically to news ways of acting and being in the world.

It makes sense that what we think and say greatly effects the way we feel. The way we think and feel impacts the choices we make regarding actions we take and how we respond to others. The way we act and respond forms our habits. The feelings and emotions we have when engaging in habitual activity creates our neural networks in the brain and secretes the biochemistry which is the basis of who we are and how we are wired.

Therefore, by changing our perspective and attitude we become more open and receptive to developing new habits. New habits Replace the old habits, and new habits done over time Rewire both our neurology and biochemistry.

An anxious person has anxious thoughts and feelings. These anxious thoughts and feelings have one engage in actions which exhibit anxiety. A person who thinks, feels, and acts anxiously will have an anxious biochemistry and be neurologically wired to behave in an anxious manner.

Oftentimes, people’s attempts to change something in their lives are limited or unsuccessful due to an over emphasis on one dimension of the change process or even completely ignoring the other two dimensions. Talk therapy often helps a person gain insight into why they behave or react in a certain fashion. Yet, gaining insight into why I get angry or have trouble sustaining an intimate relationship doesn’t, by itself, prevent me from getting angry or being toxic or self-sabotaging in relationships.

People often try to end a bad behavior through just will power. In the language of the social sciences a person attempts to extinguish the old behavior by pure will and determination. Examples of this are when a person makes a New Year’s resolution to stop smoking, eating too much, or spending too much time on the computer. Such resolutions seldom fare well unless the person is able to find a suitable Replacement for the old habit. The replacement chances of success are increased the more the new behavior successfully addresses the emotional and psychological needs that the old behavior fulfilled.

Sometimes attempts at facilitating change focus on the biochemical level. The most common form of such a biochemical intervention is the taking of non prescription or psychotropic drugs. Yet, we often try to affect our biochemistry through other means such as exercise, meditation, or diet.

Pharmaceuticals seldom solve a problem, but more often than not just mask a symptom or shift the problem to another area. Taking an anti-anxiety or anti-depressant seldom cures the anxiety or depression, but does provide relief or causes a temporary change in one’s biochemistry deadening one’s unwanted experience.

Even though changes in biochemistry caused by increased exercise and healthy diet inherently involve the introduction of new habits, their long term success depends on the emotional and psychological needs also being addressed and met. While exercise biochemically elevates mood and provides needed energy, these benefits will have a hard time overcoming a highly stressful lifestyle, or a personal psychology dominated by self-hatred. Activities such as exercise or diet, which are inherently biochemical interventions, need frequent and consistent repetition if they have any hope of becoming durable and reliable facets of successful change.

Reframing, Replacing and Rewiring are essential and interrelated elements in the change process. When it comes to the learning and mastery of a skill or talent it is best accomplished through the integration of habit, mind, and body. Reframing tends to the psychological and emotional elements through providing the necessary shift in perspective and attitude. Replacing deals with the actual habit, allowing the ritual to become part of our body memory no longer being dependent on conscious awareness. When one habit is replaced by another the new one becomes reflexive and our default mode when we aren’t consciously monitoring our behavior.

A reflexive habit becomes wired into our neurology. Each time we engage in the habit our body deepens the groove, the neural pathways, carved out by the behavior. Each neurological event elicits a corresponding biochemical experience. A new habit, therefore, Rewires us both neurologically and biochemically.

In therapeutic situations I have found it highly beneficial to pay close attention to the processes of Reframing, Replacing and Rewiring. A new book, The Parental Tool Box, written by my wife and I will be released at the end of this month. In each and every chapter we explore parenting strategies and techniques which help create a mutually respectful and rewarding home environment.

The various tools provided all incorporate aspects of Reframing, Replacing and Rewiring.The tools provided are not magic wands but means by which both parents and their children can find increasing joy and harmony in their interactions with each other.

The constant assault by the corporate media on Donald Trump is both obvious and potentially dangerous in so many ways.The negative focus on Trump partially paralyzes the functioning of our government, diverts attention from other important issues, has us fantasize that he is the root of all our problems, and helps foment a social landscape full of fear, hatred and endless divisiveness.

The public treatment of Donald Trump as means of trying to purge from society all that is bad and evil finds its roots in psychology, comparative religions and social anthropology. The use of an individual to exorcise the demons in a family, community and society has occurred throughout history. In most cases all that is accomplished through these devices is a form of emotional release without any real substantive change occurring.

Here are the definitions of two common strategies used which while serving functional, psychological and emotional purposes due little to engender meaning change or progress:

Identified patient, or “IP”, is a term used in a clinical setting to describe the person in a dysfunctional family who has been unconsciously selected to act out the family’s inner conflicts as a diversion.

Trump is being vilified for making vulgar, insensitive and hateful statements regarding women and various racial and ethnic groups. Yet, many of those criticizing him are just as vulgar and insensitive in their vitriolic attacks on Trump and his family. Any of his archaic or potentially insulting remarks regarding women are more than matched by the attacks on his character being hurled by many feminists and liberals labeling him as a misogynist. The slurring and vicious attacks are also lodged towards any man or women who doesn’t engage in name calling or show of hatred at Trump. Any sign of tolerance is viewed as a sign of being a closet misogynist or homophobe.

His fitness of office is questioned because of his impulsive nature and how dangerous it could be regarding international affairs. He is accused of being a racist and an Islamaphobe for his protectionists stances regarding immigration. Yet, if this were truly the issue, and he was not just being used as scapegoat and identified patient, than why weren’t the deportations policies of Bush and Obama equally horrific. While the data can be interpreted in many ways it clearly shows that Trump’s actions pale in comparison to Obama.

The concerns regarding his impulsive, belligerent and possibly unstable personality endangering our safety is well worth our attention and concern. Yet, publicly calling a person crazy and unstable does not seem to be a wise thing to do. A mentally unstable person is the last person you would want to publicly and consistently call crazy and threaten with impeachment. This leads one to believe that those in the media and government with the most exposure to Trump do not fully believe the “he’s bat shit crazy” narrative.

Yet, if weren’t the identified patient and scapegoat he probably wouldn’t be singled out for his war like disposition and instead either be grouped with his predecessors or given a free pass like they generally have received. The previous president, and noble peace prize recipient, was the first two term president to spend his entire time in the White House engaged in war. The US was engaged in war with no less than seven nations, and many of his international policies such as the drone program and various sanctions were in violation of international law.

While Secretary of State Hilarly Clinton’s propensity towards military aggression and fomenting war attracted relatively little attention regarding her fitness for office. In a previous post http://guidoworld.com/blog/the-snubbing-… explored the inappropriateness of her showing such unabated and unrepentant glee at the brutal execution of Gaddafi who while being controversial, had an impressive record of improving the quality of life for many Libyans and African’s in general. Likewise Clinton’s and Obama’s stated desire to create a no fly zone did not alarm the press, despite its enforcement being a de facto act of war against Russia.

Trump’s being viewed and used as the identified patient and scapegoal helps explain many of the conflicts, ironies and discrepancies between how his actions and proposed policies are being reacted to so much more harshly than similar ones of his predecessors.

While Trumps impulsive nature is given as reason for his impeachment, do date, each of Trump’s more aggressive and impulsive acts of war, or threats and ultimatums to nations such as N. Korea or Russia have been met with positive press and praise from members of the Senate and the House. The only path apparently left open to Trump to lessen his being treated as scapegoat and identified patient is to continue our immoral and reckless policy of assassination and overthrow of specific sovereign leaders and governments who we frequently claim, but rarely prove, “kill or gas their own people”. Calls for his impeachment seemingly subside when he supports huge arms deals to other nations such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey who have documented histories of engaging in actual genocidal acts.

We are being conditioned to fear, despise and loathe every single action of Trump and “his supporters” as “deplorable” racists, misogynists, Islamophobes, etc. Anyone not eager to ridicule his every word and gesture becomes a modern version of a “pinko communist” of the McCarthy and Archie Bunker eras.

The spiritual left has now joined the ranks of the fanatical religious right in their righteous assertion that all those not sharing their beliefs as being evil, immoral and a danger to society. All including, if not especially liberals are being conditioned to being close minded, mean and intolerant to any person who is hesitant to hate Trump, the Russians, or leader of any nation which we have/had designs on such Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Iraq and Libya.

It has become the national past time to foment hatred and division. The use of Trump of as scapegoat and identified patient seems to be more of a catalyst for an increase in social tension and chaos than a release. The identified patient and scapegoat provide temporary relief and deflection, but they more often then not do not bring about healthy change.

I, too, find much of Donald Trump’s policies and stances unsavory and reckless. Yet, while his presentation is often childish and rude the substance and content of what he says and the policies he espouses is in line with our nation’s basic policies for decades. He is not a rogue president, just one with poor filters. If all we do is demand that our presidents be more sophisticated in articulating and implementing heinous and destructive policies all we do is insure that our executive branch becomes a breeding ground for sociopaths and smooth speakers who feel that morals and international law don’t apply to this “exceptional and essential” nation.

Identified patients are a product of the dysfunctional families in need of therapy and services. Families which try to pawn off all their problems on the identified patient are only missing an opportunity for healthy growth and change. We are a nation in need of reflecting on how we can become more life affirming and an agent of peace and harmony.

Blaming Trump for all our ills, or preventing him from establishing better relations with nation’s who we currently do not trust and who have lost trust in us is counterproductive. I remember seeing a quote by a Congressman in which he said he could never trust the Russians, and therefore, he would never engage in diplomatic relations with them. Well, the whole purpose of diplomacy is to work with those that you don’t trust.

Without diplomacy there is only domination and annihilation. Peace isn’t dependent on complete agreement, only in learning how to adapt to and accommodate our differences and preferences.

The original seeds of Political Correctness stemmed from a desire to avoid making blanket prejudicial statements, in which people were over identified with an aspect, feature or attitude that they possessed. The goal of this sensitivity was to highlight how complex and unique individuals are and to avoid pigeonholing people into powerful and often negative stereotypes.

Instead of identifying a someone solely as a handicapped person, they became a person with a handicap. Likewise a person could be one who tells lies as opposed to a liar, or a person who struggles with addiction or has stolen things rather than being labeled an addict, thief or criminal. The politically correct appellations were more descriptions than absolute labels. They allowed the person being described to have other attributes, and also allowed for them to make changes and improvements such as rehabilitation or recovery. A person with autism, addictions, or has depression is quite different then labeling someone as autistic, an addict or depressed.

Much was gained in the descriptions for both speaker and the person being spoken about. The speaker was able to identify qualities of a person without sounding or being prejudiced or biased. The descriptions and politically correct language allowed us to appreciate and celebrate differences as well as name and identify undesirable characteristics without being overly harsh or close minded.

The person being spoken about was able to see themselves as more than a label. In this manner their dignity and worth were restored, and in many cases they were able to use the attribute as a way of becoming a part of a community often with a sense of pride. The autism spectrum, addictions and many factions of the mental health community have become opportunities for not only acceptance and understanding from those outside of the community, but often a source of connection with those who share their experience and way of being in the world.

In an effort to reduce and remove all forms of hatred from society a movement inside the desire to be sensitive and politically correct began to try to purge and replace any language which promoted or was saturated with prejudice and intolerance. Ethnic and racial hatred was found to be housed in many cultural and racial slurs. My being Italian I was familiar with the derogatory slang terms such as “dago”, “wop” or the modern day “Guido” which so happens to be my actual last name. While ethnic slurs and slangs were able to be replaced with more formal terms such as Italian, Jew, or Mexican other terms were harder to find non-offensive alternatives.

Yet, soon the desire to avoid stigmatized and hate ridden language became obsessive and extreme. Descriptors were often discarded and replaced with euphemisms or vague if not misleading terminology. The stigma of the “n word”, or “retard” was not and cannot be removed by language alone. The attitude infuses the word with meaning, and while a word may be contaminated over time with how it is used, any new word will suffer the same fate if the underlying hatred is not addressed.

My friends “of color” never had trouble, and usually preferred my use of the term blacks as opposed to African Americans. First of all the term African American is both inaccurate and a form of prejudice in that I am assuming the black person I am meeting is both of African descent and is American. Yet, what about those who identify more as a member of an island culture or happen to be born in another of the 100 or so lands in which blacks happen to be born. Calling someone “a person of color” is also extremely vague and racially biased because we are generally referring to specific shades of color. We are indirectly insulting many people by insinuating that they aren’t people of color. Everyone has color whether that be beige, white, pink, red, yellow, brown or black, and to say someone is a person of color is either a euphemism or code word for a particular color or shade range.

I think it is absurd to think that using the term black is inherently racist, or derogatory. It is descriptive and far more accurate. Likewise I always found it strange to replace the term oriental with Asian. The Orient and Asia are both geographical terms. Yet, when one speaks of someone looking Asian they are usually referring to someone whose heritage is found in the Orient. If I told a sketch artist that the person I saw was Asian, they would most certainly draw someone with characteristics from the Orient, and not a person from India or Pakistan which are from Asia and number in the billions of people.

Likewise I do not believe that referring to the mentally challenged as “special” removes the stigma, those who are mean and insulting to the mentally handicapped do not change their prejudice because he word has changed. While calling someone “retarded” is a slur like calling me a “wop”, saying that someone has mental retardation is more descriptively accurate than designating them as “special”.

Saying someone suffers from depression is a description of a way a certain population reacts to and responds to their experiences. Likewise mental retardation stripped of its stigma just refers to the fact that the neurology of a person with this condition processes information at a slower rate and that their cognitive abilities fall below the average. I have been a tutor of a number of people with neurological and processing conditions including Autism Spectrum and Downs Syndrome, and have not felt that any limitations they had make them inferior to those who are “higher functioning”. I have no need to use euphemisms or to be less accurately descriptive because I have found their neurological tendencies and skills have little and in most cased no bearing on their ability to find joy and be good people.

Accurate descriptions of people assist us in appreciating, celebrating, understanding and feeling compassion for the experiences and hurdles of others. While the seeds of Political Correctness started with this noble goal it has in many realms become a purveyor of fantasy, misinformation and even its own form of stigma and prejudice.

Many of the those who used political correctness as a tool to reduce prejudice and increase the level of human understanding and tolerance have become some of the most biased and prejudiced individuals in our culture. The heritage of political correctness was to defend those who were being attacked for being different or the minority. They advocated for the underdog or those ignored or hunted down by the power structures which favor certain groups. They supported those that were attacked, devalued, marginalized, stigmatized and predatorized by others simply due to their race, cultural heritage, disability, gender, religious affiliation or ideology.

In Identity politics we now are insulting and condemning people for what they say, believe or in a growing number of cases what they are perceived to think. Instead of celebrating diversity of opinion we are demanding every one to have the same value system, express themselves with the same terminology, and see the world through the same eyes

Instead of saying someone has made a remark which could be considered racist, or sexist or insensitive to a particular group many of the previously politically correct crowd are labeling people as sexists, racists and bigots. Righteously and aggressively hating the haters has become vogue. People are pigeonholed, judged harshly, harassed and even physically attacked for expressing an opinion which is thought to be biased or holding to an antiquated view of a particular minority group. If a man makes a remark which could be construed as insulting or demeaning to a female he is a sexist, not a person who made a remark which could be perceived as insensitive or insulting.

If a person expresses a desire that their child marry a person of their race, ethnic group or religious affiliation they are often irreversibly labeled a racist or a hater of other groups. The consideration of such viewpoints being a love and pride in one’s heritage is not possible, not even that they are a segregationist, but only that they are racists and haters.

People are being denied preferences, a desire to maintain cultural heritage, free speech and even the right to harbor negative feelings towards any identified group. Those who hate the haters often claim the ability to read minds when those who make both pro and anti statements towards a group state with certainty that the positive statements are lies and the negative sentiments are truth and in fact are a thin veil for their underlying hatred.

In identify politics it is fine to call someone a racist, sexist, Islamaphobe, Nazi, or any other slur if they do not adhere to a very specific political and ideological agenda. Anyone who voted against Obama is a racist, and anyone who didn’t vote for Hillary is a sexist. The Identity Politics narrative often labels any protectionist action or one aimed at preventing Islamic Extremism as racists and Islamaphobic.

Even when laws are passed out of fear and paranoia it might be a bit of stretch to say all proponents are haters and white supremacists. Yet much of the identity politics crowd is engaged in a level of McCarthyism regarding the Russians which matches if not supersedes that of supporters of building a wall and not allowing Arabs into the US.

It is perplexing and disappointing how much of the Identity Politics and Feminists crowd are engaging in prejudice, hatred and intolerance. Tolerance, acceptance and understanding are useless if they are only reserved for certain groups and entities. The original point of political correctness was to promote tolerance and acceptance as a universal which would in and of itself create social harmony.

On a daily basis I hear friends who are consumers of the Identity Politics and popular Feminist narratives call people who are conservative or traditionalists as being “stupid”, “backward” and “ignorant”. All of these terms are expressed with a palpable level of disgust and superiority. This attitude is at the core of exceptionalism. It expresses the idea that people of higher intelligence are inherently better than those who are not, the irony that many of these same people have been vociferous advocates for the mentally handicapped is totally missed. I want to state once again, that I do not feel better than or inferior to others due to their IQ or any other recognized measure of human intelligence.

The self-proclaimed exceptionalism lying at the core of identity politics is the total opposite of tolerance, understanding and the celebration of diversity. Exceptionalism is a form of cultural or ideological eugenics. If one is exceptional all others are inferior, which is actually the very definition and essence of prejudice and bigotry. It shouldn’t be a matter who hates first, or feels the most justified in their anger and righteousness, but rather who has the courage to be devoted to peace, love and understanding. Good people have good intentions, and engage in life affirming behavior, but that doesn’t make them inherently better than their contemporaries.

I have always been a person who has had an ambivalent relationship with objectivity. While I like being able to see things clearly and not be overly influenced with my perspective, I’m also a person who views emotion and feeling as being integral in the experience of joy, intimacy and rewarding experience.

So while trying to see things from a multiple of perspectives and being able to live in another man’s/women’s shoes, I also want to fully engage and participate in my own experience. I yearn to savor and relish my sentient life full of thoughts, feelings and sensations.

This has led me to have a very ambivalent relationship to science in which I utilize its objectivity to see things as they are, but then I quickly advance beyond pure objectivity and avail myself to the artistic subjectivity of life. In my song Thinking Inside the Box, I express the concern of overdoing objectivity in the following manner.

I object to the objective of your objectivity

In Science often the objective of objectivity is to avert and transcend subjectivity. The goal is often to annihilate the prejudicial view of subjectivity and to acquire objective Truth and Knowledge. Yet, for me pure objective knowledge is sterile and inhuman. I therefore object to the objective of objectivity!

I am enthralled with life in all its imperfections and impermanence. Life is a rewarding and unending process in which each day I become more intimate with myself, others and nature.

This brings me to my discomfort with the modern feminist framing of objectifying females and the female body. While I admit it is possible to objectify anything, including the female form/body I strongly react to how it is presented. I once again object to the objective of their claim that men generally objectify women. Continue Reading »

It was indeed fairly odd that Nelson Mandela refused to meet Barak Obama in person when Obama went to Africa while Mandela was in the hospital in 2013. Though Mandela was in stable condition it was Nelson’s and the Mandela family wishes that Obama not come to the hospital. An opportunity for Obama to meet one of his heroes in person was squelched and the press did their best to normalize this and not make it significant or noteworthy.

Obama did manage to get a phone call with Nelson’s wife and was able to meet with some relatives at a foundation in Nelson’s name. Yet, to be rebuffed at paying his respects to one of the world’s most respected if not revered black leaders had to be a tough pill for Obama to swallow.

Yet, to theorize and understand the possible reasons for Mr. Obama’s being snubbed by Mr. Mandela is not necessarily that difficult to ascertain. Nelson Mandela was dedicated to the freedom of blacks all through Africa. On many occasions Mandela spoke of his great respect and admiration of leaders such as Gaddafi, Castro and Chavez for both their support of the cause of Apartheid and South Africa in particular.

Mandela referred to Gaddafi as a hero and the person who did more for black rights and the unification of Africa than any other man. Mandela has a grandchild named Gaddafi and seems to have viewed Gaddafi as an African version of MLK. It was Obama who endorsed if not commandeered the policies that led to the brutal murder of Gaddafi in 2011. Ms. Clinton as secretary of state is famous for her glee at taking credit for his demise. Whether or not the US shares Mr. Mandela’s feelings for Gaddafi one can appreciate the anger and hurt that Mandela must have felt to one of the persons most responsible for the demise of his dear friend and hero.

One must remember that Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the US all the way up to the Obama administration despite his popularity as a freedom fighter and leader of civil rights for black africans. The label of terrorist was common to most of Mandela’s political friends an allies such as Castro and Chavez. Obama’s suppression and prosecution. of whistle blowers along with his protection and working relationship with the financial organizations that worsened the life of many blacks in the US and internationally could not have helped him win the esteem of Mr. Mandela.

Yet, the view of increasing disappointment turned to anger at Barak Obama for his poor record regarding black and human rights in the US and around the globe was not just the apparent stance of Mandela, but began to be shared by many others. In the US former associates of MLK and other leaders of the black and civil rights groups became increasingly disenchanted and frustrated with Obama’s stances, policies and missed opportunities. The bulk of the victims in the endless wars and military interventions during Obama’s two terms have been people of color.

One of the most respected black activists and intellectuals of our time is Cornel West. He is the perfect example of a man whose high hopes and expectations of Obama were quickly dashed. As the Obama years passed his frustration and disappointment grew to the point that, for him, his administration wasn’t just a missed opportunity but actually set black and human rights tumbling backward.

We have become a nation that focuses too much on appearances such as skin color, gender and beliefs and far less on the impact one’s actions have on the actual lives of others. We judge people on what they say and how they present themselves and spend more time trying to control their thoughts and read their minds than actually paying attention to what they actually do.

For those of you new to the site, or who haven’t visited in awhile I invite you to fully explore GuidoWorld and all it has to offer. If you click on to the Words tab at the far top right you will currently see four of my novels along with two of my nonfiction books.

I have recently updated the page so that the entire books are posted rather than just some selected chapters. Within the next year I plan on posting two or three more of my books, so by the time you finish reading the current menu of my works more should be available.

A couple tabs to the left of Words you will find the Music tab. There you will find the growing library of my albums. The music contained on the albums spans from the early 80’s all the way up to the present. Similar to the book menu, the posted music library will continue to grow and be of a higher quality throughout the year. Of the 19 albums currently listed 14 of them have been remixed and remastered and will show themselves as part of Bandcamp.

The remaining five plus an additional five more albums are in the process of being updated and remixed. My son, who is a far better recording technician than myself will be in charge of the new revised mixes. Since I have a huge backlog of songs and I still write and record between 8 and 12 songs a year, new albums will be appearing in the foreseeable future.

The podcast button is new and is rather sparse at this point. Within the next year or so I plan on beginning to record a number of podcasts that discuss my books and music, as well as all discuss and expand upon all of the social, political and psychological topics that you have covered in my posts over the last decade.

Those who have been faithful readers to this site know how much I am enthralled with life, and how much I relish the opportunity to share and to grow. Thanks for taking the time to read, listen to and ponder all that I have produced and posted over the years.
Enjoy!

Yes, let’s have a party. A new political party which represents a true alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. Let’s have a party that actually respects and represents the wishes and values of the majority of the people. Let’s have a political party which is for affordable and universal health care, let’s have a party that works for the economic and political interests of the common man, the vast majority of US citizens.

Let’s have a party that makes peace and a decent quality of life for all citizens its number one goal. In fact let’s call it the Peace Party. Let’s have the Peace Party major focus be on maintaining harmony while increasing the quality and standard of life for all citizens not just the wealthy and privileged.

Let’s have a party which makes our being able to live in a healthy and sustainable environment a higher priority than making money or controlling and policing the world. Let’s have a party which respects the integrity and self-determination of each person not only in this country but in all others around the globe. Let’s have a political party which strives to live harmoniously with others and respects the sovereignty of all other nations to make their own decisions regarding social and economic policy and political ideology as long as it does not directly harm or substantially impair the quality of life of US citizens.

I am not alone in this wish, or in thinking that such a social movement is both vital and possible at this juncture of our nation’s history. David Lindorff of http://www.thiscantbehappening.net penned the following this weekend.

Similar sentiments were also presented by Paul Craig Roberts in his latest blog, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-24/paul-craig-roberts-warns-world-going-down-trump. He casts the need for such a movement as urgent, and in fact hints that our chances of averting a nuclear confrontation with a nuclear power such as Russia are dwindling daily. Such feelings that we are a warrior nation in need of changing our path, is not only held by an ex-Reagan administration guys like Roberts but also held by peace activist and ex-president Jimmy Carter for years.

In the article cited above by Paul Craig Roberts he presents the well documented but still controversial view that the US is purposely generating conflict in the Middle East and with Russia. While the US’s role in destabilizing nations like Iraq, Libya, Yemen is now pretty much accepted, the idea that we would purposely escalate tensions with Russia is still difficult to emotionally accept no matter how convincing the evidence.

I personally found this last short article particular disturbing. It involves Representative Gabbard Tulsi’s attempts at getting a bill passed that would make it illegal for federal dollars to be used in arming and supporting known international terrorists groups. Please read the article and bill as it seems straight forward and to the point, and does not include any extraneous attachments which could make the bill a Trojan horse for less honorable intentions.

There are those that believe that the ousting of Donald Trump would cure all ills. Yet, the path of war with a nuclear power such as Russia did not start with Mr. Trump. We are, and have been an ambitious empire for many decades, and the need for change of direction far predates Mr. Trump.

The previous administration was the first one lasting 8 years that was at war for every day of its tenure. While this is quite saddening it should be noted that we have been involved in some war or military conflict for well over 90% of our existence as a nation. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41086.htm

Not the type of world record for which any nation should be proud, especially one that portrays itself as being a beacon of freedom and democracy. Here is an article attempting to quantify the number of global deaths attributed to US direct and indirect intervention. http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm

My thought is that through the use of social media we can start a campaign to have people register as members of the Peace Party. Not being a maven of social media I would hope someone reading this would take the initiative to begin the campaign. The goal of this article is not to demonize the US, but to point out the need for the peaceful will of citizens of the US to have a viable political outlet.

Becoming a member of the Peace Party is not so much a commitment to vote for its candidates, but a belief that a Peace Party is a valuable voice to be heard, and policies based on peace and diplomacy are an important and missing component of our current political climate.

The KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) is said to have been originated in the early sixties by the navy and referred to the importance and benefit of simple design. Albert Einstein was a big proponent of the idea and felt that any good theory must be simple and elegant, and that complicated formulas and solutions are both inefficient and unusable.

I have stated on numerous occasions that people generally make life far more complicated that it has to be. Experiences such as joy, happiness, peace and harmony are not that complicated, let alone idealistic. The majority of people conduct the vast majority of their social interactions in a peaceful and harmonious manner. In a world of indoor plumbing, potable water, electricity, etc. we are now in a position for most societies, if not the entire globe, to live increasingly comfortable and rewarding lives.

Yet, the greedy and power hungry minority spawn fear and hatred as a means of making the good life the possession of the few by complicating life and convincing the masses that life’s simple pleasures are idealistic and unattainable. Destroying the elegance and simplicity of cooperation by presenting the easiest conflict as unresolvable and flatly stating that all realistic options and acts of diplomacy have been exhausted when nary a one has been explored.

When breaking down a rewarding life into its simplest terms I come up with a few observations. First I yearn for intimacy. I don’t just mean having an intimate relationship with other people, but an intimate relationship with myself, nature and life in general. Intimacy is just the natural process of becoming closer and more familiar with something. One can be intimate with almost any object, idea or activity. I explored this in depth in my book Exploring Intimacy which can be read here:

The second major category is to better enjoy the integration of all aspects of our/my experience. This would mean that I enjoy the sensorial, emotional and mental aspects of my life. In other words I learn how to maximize my experience by enjoying and savoring my being a thinking and feeling sentient person which exists in a body and lives in a world. The third element is my feeling connected to the world and act in a way which improves and maintains not only my quality of life but that of all of organic life.

Applying these ideas to our shared social world we come up with the following. We can keep things simple if we focus on the following. First we should not only tolerate but encourage all to find and cultivate intimacy in their lives. Second we can protect the quality of people’s lives and experiences by not destroying the environment and endangering people’s health through dumping toxins and poisons into our air, land and water.

The third guiding principle is that the major goal and concern of all personal and social behavior is to be life affirming. Being life affirming not only has us move away from poisoning our land, water and air, but also dictates that we make peace and harmony the goal and focus of all our decisions. In a life affirming society any action which harms others or the environment would be attended to and not be allowed to become entrenched or a habit of government. No action which caused harm or impaired the quality of life would be considered an act of progress or even tolerated. Only actions which enhanced or maintained the quality of life of the majority would be considered progress.

Einstein pointed out that one needs to be as simple as one can be without becoming too simple. While intimacy and integrated experience are relatively straight forward, the concept of being life affirming will always be a work in progress. In many situations it will be easy to determine what is life affirming, yet in many areas assessing what is the most life affirming option both near and far term will be challenging.

The fact that social utopias do not exist should not be alarming nor discouraging. The fact that life is an endless process of improvement and development only adds to its preciousness, and is inherent in the concept of intimacy. Yet, do let the greedy and power hungry convince you that life’s lack of perfection means everything is too complicated and joy, peace and harmony are idealistic fictions. Joy, intimacy and harmony are real experiences and not ideals. Real experience is never perfect, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be simple or elegant.

One does not have to deny the reality of pain and suffering to appreciate the reality of joy, love, intimacy and harmony.